Why in the Arts World Don't You Have a Pinterest?

Haven’t you heard? Pinterest: Now Officially Better Than Yahoo and Bing* *Sort of.

The story dropped earlier this month: Pinterest referred more people to websites in August than Yahoo and Bing. What that means is that more people visited Website X by clicking on content (generated from Website X) that is on Pinterest, than people did by searching for Website X on Yahoo or Bing. Which is huge – the little-social-media-that-could topped industry giants, if only by a few decimal points.

The report came from Shareaholic, a social media tool for sharing websites, on just about every social media platform. They have tools for sharing pages from your browser, to putting buttons on your site to allow your visitors to share your content. The Shareaholic Analytics tool tracks who’s sharing your work, and how visitors are reaching you – which is where this report comes from. Shareaholic Analytics also points out that traffic from Pinterest has doubled in the past four months and “is now the fourth largest traffic source in the world”. Can that possibly be true?

Maybe. Search Engine Optimization is a tricky beast and there are a few drawbacks to the report. Shareaholic can only measure the websites currently using its tools – which is a network of 200,000 publishers, who reach 300 million people each month. While that sounds like a suitable sample size, it does depend on the makeup and content of each website, their level of SEO sophistication, etc, etc.

Of course, why am I telling you this? The arts community, while generally not on the bleeding edge, hasn’t been idle on the Pinterest front. The always-cool SFMOMA has boards upon boards of art. The Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre boards give us a glimpse behind the scenes of their shows and soirees.  Heck, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra pins everything from fanmail and music jokes to gorgeous music halls and their musicians. The fact is, Pinterest’s layout and content lends itself to arts organizations. (But for real people, you can pin videos – and I have yet to see a performances board!) Shareaholic says that Pinterest is one of the best ways to send people to your website. Why don’t you have one yet?

It could be time, it could be money, it's probably a mixture of both. Maybe, like skeptics of this report, you need more time to make an assessment. There are larger implications here: that “sharing” is greater than “searching,” visuals more important than text, and that your friends know what you should look at better than some algorithm. This was still just one report, using one social sharing service, for one month, however, and only time will tell if these trends continue – but maybe you and your organization should take a closer look at Pinterest. We have tools to help you set one up.

Where We Are and Where We've Been - Annual Report

It has been almost a full year since I joined Technology in the Arts, thanks to the Master of Arts Management program at Carnegie Mellon University. As we enter another school year and prepare for a new group of research associates, we’ve got a look back at the past year. Research Associate Terry Boyd prepared this Annual Report with our highlights, summaries, and where we have room to improve.

Tech in the Arts Annual Report

If you're a fan of metrics, be sure to check out the report. Here are some of my favorites:

Highlights

• Staff size! We added 5 authors last year!
• Page views jumped by 63%
• Visitor total increased by 78%

Social Media

• Even though our Facebook page is only 2 years old, Facebook is our largest traffic source
• Over 7,000 clicks from Facebook posts led to our blog posts last year.
• Our Twitter account saw an increase of followers by 28%

There's plenty of room for improvement (always!) and we hope readers will join us in the next year! We also have a friendly, non-flash version of the report here.

Gaming or gamification: a tool for the arts

According to surveys done by Comscore, gaming online, on smart phones, and among women has been growing for years.  Likewise the number and quality of board games has exploded in the last twelve or so years.  The upshot of these phenomena is a clear indication that gaming and gaming culture is on the rise globally and all indications are that slow and steady growth will continue to happen in this sector. But how do the arts harness this phenomena?  Game dynamics can be used to attract attention, deepen interaction, and retain interest.  Games of course have always held interest in technology and examination of game mechanics regularly shows up on Tech literature.  Beyond the tech world gamification has also become a subject of interest in the corporate world in general.  Gaming and gamification holds promise for the arts.  Applications include game dynamics on websites to bringing game mechanics to your marketing or development efforts.

Roughly speaking game mechanics fall into a number of broader categories and smaller subcategories of stimuli and response mechanisms:

• Achievement:  points, levels, rewards, recognition, and gifts.
• Competition:  leader boards, envy, varying challenge from human interaction, and the human competitive instinct.
• Cooperation:  altruism, social fabric, communal discover, commerce, and teamwork.
• Ownership:  building something that is yours, loyalty, self-expression, and loss avoidance.

Before embarking on gaming or gamification it is wise to consider your brand, your audience, and your goals.   In order to motivate specific behaviors the right combination of mechanics and dynamics need to be in place and these can vary from audience to audience.  Indeed, high powered consultants at high powered firms can be hired to help with gamification but this isn't always necessary.  A simple, well planned addition of gamification can increase time spent on a website by two or three fold.  For instance, if a customer answers three questions correctly about your organization's history they get a 5% discount on their current purchase.  Will everyone participate?  Probably not, but it will deepen the experience for a number of people and potentially deepen their understanding and commitment to your organization.

The Graph of Ideas by Brendan Griffen

Two things I know are true: That Rachael Wilkinson's impression of SNL's Drunk Uncle rivals Drunk Uncle himself and that Art.sy’s Fan page is the best source on Facebook for wonderfully distracting food-for-thought. I recently came across yet another dynamic infographic of sorts- the "Graph of Ideas." It presents a beautiful, interconnected and thready web of “Every Big Idea, Ever.” According to Suzanne LaBarre in an interview with map creator Brendan Griffen,

Each node represents one historical figure, and the nodes are color-coordinated to represent specific eras or fields of expertise (red for 19th- and 20th-century philosophers; orange for fiction authors; purple for comedians; and so on). Like-minded people are grouped together, and linked to all their influences, as well as everyone who has influenced them. The more influential a person, the bigger his or her node.

Griffen includes in the map every profile on Wikipedia that has an “influenced by” or “influences” field. Though the map is well-stocked, some great thinkers are absent (athletes and sculptors for example) from it. Griffen explains in the interview,

“I was limited [by] the dataset. Most of the people are philosophers and authors primarily because these are text-driven endeavors. Presumably fans of philosophy and books have entered in the information which sort of makes sense given their overrepresentation in the graph. Sports fans are unlikely to enter these into Wikipedia and so they are underrepresented. Similarly with artists but to a lesser extent.”

Basically, it is a map of the people Wikipedia contributors care about/care to write about. Though this may be the case, it is no less fascinating to explore just how interconnected these great thinkers are. Griffen's final message is inspirational, retrospective, and forward-thinking:

"Everyone is the collective sum of everyone else. We often think great thinkers, scientists, and authors sit in isolation in some cloister waiting for that eureka moment to come to them in a lightning storm. The truth is, the process of discovery forces us to consciously or unconsciously draw on all of our known, and perhaps more significantly, unknown antecedents of knowledge and wisdom to come up with new solutions to the problems we’re facing today."

A Little Sun, Solar Power, and Electricity: Olafur Eliasson at the Tate Modern

A little sunshine can go a long way, or at least, that’s what artist Olafur Eliasson has set out to prove. His exhibition, Little Sun, at the Tate Modern revolves around “solar power, the global energy challenge, light and its importance in and for life.” But at the center of it all, lies not the Sun, but a tiny solar powered lamp called a Little Sun! http://vimeo.com/41830924

Eliasson explains the Little Sun as follows:

Light is for everyone – it determines what we do and how we do it. This is why Frederik Ottesen and I have developed the solar-powered lamp Little Sun. Little Sun is a small work of art with a large reach. One part of the artwork is the lamp and the activities it enables. The other is the successful distribution of Little Sun in off-grid communities, its journey from production to usage.

In some households, there will be a Little Sun that beams during the night. The lamp is also being sold at the Tate Modern and with every purchase, it will be made available at a lower price to those who do not have access to electricity. Furthermore, visitors will be able to create light graffiti using the Little Sun! Yet the luckiest will be those who participate in a blackout event in the Surrealism galleries and use their lamps to see the art!

http://vimeo.com/45573593

But once the lights are turned back on, it’s important to note that Little Sun is not just an exhibition, it’s a for profit company!  One that seeks to expand its distribution networks into the depths of darkness to bring electricity, prosperity, and economic growth to all.

Their business model is similar to TOMs in that they will provide a reduced price Little Sun to off-grid communities for every lamp that is bought. Some additional points regarding their business goals are mentioned below:

We will ensure that Little Sun is made available where typical commercial interests would not reach.

We will focus our energy on the point where the need is most: where electricity is unavailable, unreliable, unaffordable, or unsustainable.

We will drive profit to this point of need – far beyond where industry normally goes.

We will help create and nurture small sustainable businesses by supplying them with Little Suns and providing the support they need to create profit.

We aim to make light, energy, and profits available everywhere.

Little Sun is a stellar example of a project that spans the fields of art, science, and business! Here’s to a little sunshine going a long, long way!

A Data Visualization of Art & Money

Looking for a well-worth-it distraction? Check out Art & Money, an animated art auction infographic by Jean Abbiateci. It visualizes metrics for the top 270 most expensive artworks sold in auction between 2008 and 2011.

Methodology: the radius of the bubbles is calculated on the amount of sales. Theses prices do not include the buyer's commission.

Data visualized includes the size of the artwork, the artist's nationality, date created, selling price, etc. The data is then sorted in different categories so viewers can explore the relationship between male and female buyers, a comparison between top-selling work of dead artists and living artists, a look at how the top auction houses compare, etc.

Any surprises? Share with us!

What the upcoming election mean for the arts

What will happen to arts, arts education, and arts agencies after the coming election?  If you are registered to vote then you hold part of the answer in how you decide to cast your ballot.  The coming election could very well decide whether or not there are numerous municipal, statewide, and national agencies that help support arts infrastructure and education. Americans for the Arts collects information on elected candidates based on their voting record and stated policies.  At the top of the ticket President Barrack Obama has gotten good marks from Americans for the Arts.  He has proposed and supported increasing funding to the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has come out against cuts to arts education funding and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  Mitt Romney on the other hand has pledged to cut funding to the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Support for the arts, arts funding, and arts education doesn't split strictly on party lines though and it is incumbent upon us as voters to understand where our national, statewide, municiple and local elected officials stand on support the arts, education, and the creative economy.  Americans for the Arts has a handy tool that you can use to look up the positions of elected officials at all levels. 

Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies: Distinguishing the Hype from the Viable

Making informed technology decisions means understanding the necessity, impact, and sustainability of the technology; the technology’s current and future relevance to the industry; and how it supports the organization’s business goals.

When new technologies make bold promises, how do you discern the hype from what’s commercially viable? And when will such claims pay off, if at all? Gartner Hype Cycles provide a graphic representation of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities.

With new technologies emerging overnight, early adopters tweeting about them by your morning coffee, and six beta invites in your inbox by your evening commute, deciding which technologies will pay off, which are relevant and which will last, is by no means a simple project. Gartner, Inc., a leading information technology research and advisory company, produces Hype Cycles to help clients  differentiate the “hype” technologies from the viable technologies. These graphics, organized by industry and aggregated in the “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies,” provide clients with insight to the risk, opportunity, and viability of various technologies in specific industries.

"Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies" targets strategic planning, innovation and emerging technology professionals by highlighting a set of technologies that will have broad-ranging impact across the business. It is the broadest aggregate Gartner Hype Cycle, featuring technologies that are the focus of attention because of particularly high levels of hype, or those that may not be broadly acknowledged but that Gartner believes have the potential for significant impact.-- Jackie Fenn, vice president and Gartner fellow, August 2011 Gartner press release

In the Hype Cycle, a technology’s life has five phases. These phases are (as defined by Garnter,Inc.):

Technology Trigger: A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Early proof-of-concept stories and media interest trigger significant publicity. Often no usable products exist and commercial viability is unproven.

Peak of Inflated Expectations: Early publicity produces a number of success stories—often accompanied by scores of failures. Some companies take action; many do not.

Trough of Disillusionment: Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investments continue only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.

Slope of Enlightenment: More instances of how the technology can benefit the enterprise start to crystallize and become more widely understood. Second- and third-generation products appear from technology providers. More enterprises fund pilots; conservative companies remain cautious.

Plateau of Productivity: Mainstream adoption starts to take off. Criteria for assessing provider viability are more clearly defined. The technology’s broad market applicability and relevance are clearly paying off.

Many Gartner clients use Hype Cycles as part of their technology-planning process, often drawing from multiple Hype Cycles, augmented with industry- or company-specific topics to create their own Hype Cycles and Priority Matrices. Technology providers use Hype Cycles as a way to understand the likely market reaction to their products and services based on the adopter community's expectations and attitudes. Investors watch for technologies that are on the rise in a Hype Cycle to try to catch them before the Peak of Inflated Expectations or at the beginning of the Slope of Enlightenment before they move into mainstream adoption. –Jackie Fenn

Gartner’s complete reports on technology trends and in-depth analyses of the Hype Cycles can be purchased online. But for now, take a look at the Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies (as of July 2011):

To our followers across various industries--does or will this foresight affect your technology-planning strategy?

What’s Trending on Twitter this Week

Take a look at what caught our attention on Twitter this past week:

@MuseumNext A great presentation from @clairey_ross and @chrisspeed on QR codes, Smart Objects, Museums and Public Engagement.

@idealware Great introduction to Google Grants from @MRCampaigns- including the time it generally takes to set up ads & monitor

@sumojim The Digital Engagement in the Arts Framework from Jim Richardson

@sumojim I've been playing with the social media tool SocialBro for a few weeks, and I think it's worth checking out (it's free)

@HuffPostCulture Culture's biggest world record holders

@wikimania2012 Have you taken a look at our awesome schedule of workshops, talks, meetups, and events? Check it out

@youvecottmail When it comes to social media, are you following "the rule of thirds"?

@FracturedAtlas Check out 1.1, creating 1.1 million life-size images of kids, 1 for every child in a NYC public school.

@mashable 12 Essential Social Media Cheat Sheets

‏@HuffingtonPost FACT: For the first time in history, the US Olympic Team consists of more women than men

@HuffPostCulture Frank Gehry's crumpled opera design

Be sure to share with us what caught your eye by RTing to @TechInTheArts.

Are Bricks and Mortar the Best Use for Money in the Arts? The Overbuild of Cultural Facilities in the United States

Recently, the University of Chicago’s Cultural Policy Center released the report, “Set in Stone: Building America’s New Generation of Arts Facilities, 1994-2008.”

Summary: The research examines the boom of major cultural building projects (museum, performing arts centers, and theaters) between 1998 and 2004, specifically looking at the decade between 1990 and 2000. The findings indicate during that period, “the level of investment in bricks and mortar as a percentage of total revenue and assets was disproportionate.” The full report addresses the landscape of cultural building, the investment determinants of cultural building, the feasibility of cultural building projects, and the effects on communities. The report takes into account population change, the national trend in ratio of arts organizations to cultural facilities, the relationship between the number of existing facilities in an MSA and the population, GDP, economic climate, municipal spending on physical infrastructure, spending by type of project, education rates, median household income levels, distribution of costs of projects (by region), geographic considerations, and other factors affecting the supply, demand and sustainability of cultural building projects.

[embed]http://youtu.be/KwhG7SK9csc[/embed]

Case Studies: Four case studies, presented as teaching resources, portray complex, management situations students and professionals might encounter in the real world. The cases (comprised using internal documents , construction data, and first-hand accounts from administrators, board members and/or volunteers involved in each situation) emphasize the need for managers to make strategic decisions, weighing the benefits and risks of each potential course of action. These studies provide a platform for discussion about the strategic design of projects, potentially shaping future design and management practice.

The four case studies highlight issues of  strategic decision making, project design, expansion and management at:

1) the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL

2) the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas, TX

3) the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin, TX

4) the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, VA

Key Findings: The report and the findings show that (taken from the report)

- Cultural institutions and arts facilities were overbuilt during the boom years

- Performing Arts Centers were the dominant form of new facilities

- The building boom affected the entire country, but was concentrated in the South, which saw enormous increases in the total number of facilities

- Building in the arts grew faster between 1998 and 2001 than or on par with building in other sectors, particularly health and education

- Rising population and higher average levels of education and income help explain why some cities built more than others

- There is no clear pattern of spillover effects (negative or positive) of specific cultural building projects on non-building local cultural organizations and the greater community

- There was far less investment in traditional theater facilities than there was in museum and performing arts centers

- The New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island MSA spent more on cultural infrastructure ($1.6 billion) building than any other MSA during this period

- Research shows that for every additional cultural facility a city had, it invested between $0.11 and $0.23 more per capita per year in cultural building projects

- What influenced how much a city invested in cultural infrastructure was not the size of a city’s population, but how fast the population was increasing or decreasing

[embed]http://youtu.be/76vN7mb9n6E[/embed]

Looking Ahead: Joana Woronkowicz, co-author of the report, summarizes the lessons learned from the study and how the arts industry should proceed in making building project decisions.

• What is the motivation for the project?

• Does it align with organization’s artistic mission?

• Is there a need for the project (not a want), but a need?

• Do I have the leadership in place to take the project from the beginning to the end?

• Does the building project respond to the needs of the community?

• How can I be flexible in controlling expenses and nimble in generating income?

Museum Laboratories and Chrome Experiments!

It truly is difficult to write about an experiment untested with a hypothesis unknown, and in a lab unseen. But I’ll make an exception because Google is the scientist behind it. All that we know about the Chrome Web Lab, we know because of a minute long YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhs0YHUPV24

“See the magic of the web brought to life through 5 Chrome Experiments.

Open to the world online. Live from the Science Museum, London.

Launching in beta, summer 2012.”

Instead of making grandiose, naive, and most likely, faulty predictions, all I will say is that where there is Google, there is oodles and doodles of interesting innovation. So this participatory exhibition at the London Museum of Science is one to experience and experiment with.

Coincidentally, another equally experimental space, called the Laboratory for Museum Innovation, is in the works at the Dallas Museum of Art. Having secured $300,000 in funding, the lab will soon launch a  round of  pilot projects designed to address museological issues such as : Access to Collections; Visitor Engagement and Participatory Culture; Advancing Digital Scholarship; and Transformative Infrastructure. The following was mentioned in DMA’s press release:

“The Laboratory will mount a series of short-term pilot projects that will investigate and focus on enhancing educational resources for K-12 students and teachers; expanding data and information on its collections to aid scholars and visitors; deepening understanding of how visitors encounter works of art; and improving global distribution of content from the Museum and its audiences.”

It’s going to be a summer of scientific experimentation in museums. A fine meeting of cultural and statistical significance!

The Meta-Museum: A Work of Art Depicting Museum Visitors Admiring a Work of Art

Before you head off on summer holiday, take a look at the newest addition to the Museum of Fine Art, Boston’s, Arts of the Americas wing. Warren Prosperi’s realist painting, “Museum Epiphany III,” depicts museum visitors amid the 19th-century paintings and sculptures in the Penny and Jeff Vinik Gallery of the Museum.

Those years I spent studying and copying at the MFA, I got to see the life of the museum. There’s different types of people who are always moving through the gallery. At one point I said, “All this vibrant life in the museum is a painting in and of itself.” So I started a group of paintings about the works of art, and the museumgoers, and their relationship to each other. - Warren Prosperi in a Boston Globe interview

“Museum Ephiphany I” and “Museum Ephiphany II” also feature specific locations in the Museum and were purchased by Museum trustee, David Croll. “Museum Epiphany III” will be one in a series of potentially 25 paintings.

What a turn of events when visitors become the subject of the art they view.

(Photo courtesy: David L. Ryan/Globe Staff)

Cultural Preservation: Future Concerns, Trends, and Hypotheses

The numerous civilizations of the past left behind numerous tangible traces of their heritage. Coveted or discarded, scattered or buried, broken or intact, these objects would soon become artifacts. Archeologists would study them, museums would acquire them, and the rest is none other than History. But what happens when the core activities of a civilization leave scarce amounts of tangibles? What happens when the pace of change is faster than that of preservation? We should start formulating a response, for this describes none other than the 21st century. We live in an age of information, of which a substantial amount now exists online, but is constantly in flux. The Economist described this phenomenon in an article titled History Flushed, where the author argues that archivists are limited in their activities of digital preservation due to anti-piracy legislation and software such as Digital Rights Management.

“As companies more fiercely protect their wares, contemporary digital artefacts run the risk of never being archived. Libraries have no mandate to collect apps, such as Angry Birds or Instagram, which form part of popular culture.”

In the same article, the author mentions how efforts are being made by governmental archives in the UK and the US, and non-profits like the Internet Archive. The latter is a truly comprehensive internet library that was founded in 1996 and has since become a vast collection of  “texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived webpages.” With so much of our culture now in digital format, will there be a shift in the responsibility of preservation, one from our museums to organizations specializing in digital archiving?

Yes, I believe so. Because our digital footprints are becoming bigger and more pronounced. And this seemingly unimaginable amount of information, along with our technologies and software, will most likely be preserved by various non-museum organizations; from tech giants like Google, to nonprofits like the Internet Archives, and even individuals (take a look at the Museum of Sounds).

So what of our museums? In a recent post on museum geek, Susie Cairns asked this very question. She wondered whether the plight of newspapers, and their subsequent shift towards digital content, heralds a change in museology. Especially in the way culture is preserved;

“Now is that time for museums. We still need the things that museums do. We still need to know how to select, preserve and disseminate, whether objects or information. What we don’t need is museums. If those same needs can be met by other means (digital or otherwise), the impact on museums will be significant. I think it’s important to keep this in mind as we look to the future, particularly as we see the effects of the Internet on other traditional institutions.”

While I agree with her to a certain extent, it's difficult to imagine a museum free future. The internet has definitely made it easier for us to access information about an object, but not the object itself. And even if the object can somehow be experienced remotely, it will still exist and so will the museum. Yet I can see how a technology such as augmented reality (or something not yet developed) may further separate the preservation of an object from the dissemination of its meaning to audiences. So much so that people need not visit museums.

But museums must realize this too because there have been some interesting collaborations between the tech and cultural world. Google’s work with various cultural organizations through its Cultural Institute, Nintendo’s collaboration with the Louvre, the recent 3-D printing event involving the Met and ScanBot are all examples of museums keeping apace with technology’s giant leaps. Hopefully, they will continue to make such leaps and stay wary of stumbling into obsolescence.

Three “How to…” Lists, One MuseumNext Conference, and a Letter to Museum Directors on Why Museum Websites Fail

The Guardian’s Culture Professionals Network reveals some of the best advice, best practices, and best tips from the arts management community.

1) 18 tips for managing your arts and heritage staff

2) How to recognize, prevent and deal with burnout in a creative job

3) 10 social media tips for arts organizations

And now, the international museum conference you must register for early! MuseumNext is Europe’s conference on social and digital media for the museum sector. For the third year in a row, registration to MuseumNext reached capacity long before the two-day conference rolled around this past May. Interested latecomers were placed on a waiting list.

What is the event about?

- Coverage of the hottest topics and technologies from the digital side of museums

- Packed schedule: keynotes, multi-track conference, workshops and more

- World class speakers and fresh perspectives from museums across the globe

- Unbeatable atmosphere: hundreds of museum geeks, networking and meet ups

- Great value: catering throughout the day, rewatch presentations online after the event and free high speed wifi.

This year’s conference was in Barcelona, Spain, with over 350 delegates from 34 countries across the globe. The topic of discussion: what’s next for museums? Speakers on this year's program included Nancy Proctor of the Smithsonian Institution (mobile strategy and revolutionary practices in museums), Tijana Tasich and Elena Villaespesa of the TATE (online metrics), Allegra Burnette of the MoMa (the Mobile Museum), and many other notable and forward-thinking figures in the museum world. To view videos of these lectures, visit MuseumNext's Facebook page.

The MuseumNext website is loaded with hot topics and insightful discussion in the arts management field. To get a feel for the scope of the content discussed, check out these articles:

• Why most museum websites are terrible (at achieving mission)
• What's Your MET?
• Google+ and the Museum
• Social Commerce and the Museum
• and the presentation, Rethinking the Museum for the Digital Age

[embed]http://vimeo.com/25552335[/embed]

The Space: A Summer of English Arts on a New Experimental Platform

This Olympiad summer, the arts in the UK will be consolidated onto a single online platform called The Space. What’s more? The content on The Space is being provided for free! There’s room, or more fittingly, seats for all, at venues such as the World Shakespeare Festival or Yayoi Kusama’s Obliteration Room at the Tate.

“The Space is a new way to access and experience all of the arts – for free.

Available on computer, tablet, smartphone and connected TV, The Space invites you to take part in the biggest summer of arts the UK has ever seen, whenever you want it and wherever you happen to be. ”

The Arts Council England in partnership with the BBC created The Space as a way for people from all over the world to experience the country’s rich and dynamic arts scene. In effect, a summer of English arts to all! (Albeit without the English summer and its cool Constable Skies).  So The Space is certainly something to look forward too because it will feature some of the UK’s best theatrical productions, dances, musical performances, art exhibits, poetry readings, along with content that has been specifically created for the platform.

Through the course of the summer, the performances staged in theatre, dance, film, and music will be showcased via recordings and live streaming while exhibitions at museums and galleries will be presented via behind-the-scenes footage, photographs, and interviews with artists and curators. The Space will also feature experimental and interactive digital art that can be experienced on the platform itself. Finally, for poetry and literature, there will be a variety of formats, including podcasts, poetry readings, and interactive audio-visual timelines such as the 60 Years in 60 Poems.

While live streaming and online exhibits aren’t entirely new to the performing or visual arts, the presentation of all the arts, all at once, and in one place, is certainly a novelty.  As such, The Space is truly remarkable because it is no ordinary task to fit an entire country’s arts scene onto a single platform! If other countries too made their arts available on interactive, well designed platforms, the internet would surely be a destination in itself. Perhaps the introduction of The Space suggests that it already is?!

The Space also signals another significant trend; the quality of arts being made available online continues to improve. Whether it is in opera, film, or even, educational art history, we are privy to some great material. At the same time, the problem with the online format is that there are times when our Google searches are less than serendipitous and our social networks less than social. On such days, we miss out on a lot of online events, projects, and experiments.

Yet on The Space, what will remain certain is most certainly the art. And at the end of each adequately sunny day across the Atlantic, the platform will be populated with new content for visitors to see, hear, read, and experience. Moreover, the content on this living library of the arts will be available until October. After that, it will be time, once again, to continue our search for the arts on the virtual infinity of the internet (The outer Space).

Best Practices in the Cloud: Creating Collaborative Communities in a Common Virtual Space

Slot Shelters is an international, design conversation between young students exploring the fabric and identity of their communities—and sharing their findings and designs with their peers across the globe.

A youth building and design project leveraging traditional and online cloud tools to create a global dialog around pattern, community identity and local bus shelter needs. Locally in San Jose, the Slot Shelters project aims to instill a vision of aesthetic possibilities and anchor Silicon Valley with a sense of place.

Specifically, students address the needs of their local community's bus shelters. By creating models using cardboard and pattern cards, the students design patterns that reflect the identity, needs and environment of their community. These physical models are then transformed digitally and refined using Google SketchUp. They are saved to a Google SketchUp warehouse and shared internationally with other participating students and schools.

Why Bus Shelters? Bus stops are existing hubs in our communities. Sometimes they have shelters over them and sometimes they do not. How can you creatively re-envisioned shelters so that these waiting spots become something more for your community? How can the bus shelter you create address contemporary needs of your community?

In the process of creating and drafting these designs, students become more aware of their visual environment, more in touch with the needs of their local community, and more familiar with the design prototyping process. The digital component to the project includes 3D, digital bus shelters in a shared Google SketchUp warehouse, a downloadable online ISSUU Slot Shelters Kit, and a library of design/pattern cards for other users to print out and utilize in the and construction of their own structures.

[embed]http://youtu.be/zeonh6VKMvQ[/embed]

Currently, participating students are 4th, 5th and 6th graders from Azerbaijan, Hawaii, Utah, Washington State, San Jose and Cupertino.  In September, with the launch of the Seeking Shelter Design Challenge at the 2012 ZERO1 Biennial (a showcase of "contemporary work at the nexus of art and technology" in Silicon Valley), students will have the opportunity to submit their designs for official judging.

IMAGINE how a bus stop could be designed to renew, refresh, and connect people. Would you put in a mini community garden box? Solar cells? Bookshelves for informal book sharing? A small business kiosk?

BUILD your vision of a multipurpose bus shelter. Use slotted notecards. Use Google SketchUp.

SHARE your thoughts with us. Share concept physical models as images via Flickr or Picasa. Make a refined model in Google SketchUp and share to the “seeking shelter” 3D warehouse collection.

What does this project do so well and how can organizations learn from it?

-Collaboration and sharing: Google SketchUp (and other Google services) helps local and static projects become global and dynamic interactions

-Experiential learning in the physical realm: the Slot Shelters project begins in the physical realm, laying a foundation for the understanding of design principles and techniques before moving into the virtual realm

-Establishing communities in the virtual realm: As students build their bus shelters using Google SketchUp, they annotate each design decision. Shared online, students from across the globe involved in the product can add designs and more bus shelters to the virtual community to reflect the fibers and identity of their own environment

-Pragmatic design training: Students are given basic training with a tutorial on Google SketchUp, introducing them to the tools available, providing them with the appropriate design vocabulary and elevating their comfort level with building 3D structures in a virtual environment

-Application of project in the real-world: An installation of a conceptual bus shelter will be showcased at the 2012 ZERO1 Biennial. The public will have the opportunity to experiment with the design cards and design process by adding components to the model and working collaboratively.

Following the model of “imagine, build and share,” arts organizations can incorporate applications like Google SketchUp and VoiceThread in their educational programming and community outreach initiatives (click here for a beautiful graphic of the goals and outcomes for the project). By engaging the public in the cloud, projects and ideas become more dynamic, impactful and even international.

Love this project, love the dual-approach (physical and virtual design), and love the effort to increase awareness of the visual environment!

Canal Educatif: Art History Like You've Never Seen Before!

On YouTube, if you unearth past the layers of apocalyptic cats, nyan cats, evil cats, scary cats, and sneaky cats, you’ll find content that can actually educate you! A double rainbow for erudition! We have all heard about the instructional simplicity of Khan Academy and the brilliance of Ted-Ed, but there’s an equally fantastic channel for Art History buffs that truly deserves some viral appreciation: Canal Educatif à la Demande. Canal Educatif (educational channel) is a French co-operative project. Our aim is to produce a unique series of high-quality educational videos and make them available free of charge to young people and adults.

Since 2007, Canal Educatif (CED) has produced investigative-style documentaries on Art History, Economics, and Sciences and Innovation. Tristement, only the Art History section is available in English and it includes documentaries on works by Holbein, Delacroix, Poussin, and Rodin. But it is clear that the quality of these videos far succeeds their quantity! For example, in Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, the documentary explores why Delacroix, an aristocrat, would paint the very ideal he opposed and even feared? And why did Rodin leave his iconic sculptural gateway, The Gates of Hell, unfinished? Why was it never cast in bronze? These are just some of the questions answered in the highly informative series of documentaries produced by CED.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFu3aJgkYkU

The organization has also explored a new avenue in the dissemination of Art History; the Google Art Project. In a YouTube series called Art Sleuth, CED has created short, detective style explorations of some of the gigapixel paintings on the Art Project. In these clever, 10 to 15 minute episodes, the nitty gritties of close observation reveal that in art too, the devil is in the details ; what seems to be a touching portrait of Marie Antoinette and her children, can emerge as thinly veiled attempt at false benevolence and humility. Coincidentally, there are some works in which there is literally (and figuratively), a Devil in the details.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjcR90M8of4

To cover its production expenses, CED relies on micro-donations made to their website. So if you’d like to learn more about Manet’s A Bar at Folies Bergères, do make a contribution! Here’s hoping that Kickstarter will soon be launched in Europe because CED’s projects (Filmmaking) seem ideal for the crowdfunding platform. In the meantime, there’s a lot of content offered by CED on both YouTube and on its website. You certainly won't miss the repetitive babbling of nyan cats after having watched Manet’s In the Conservatory or Rembrandt’s The Prodigal Son. Let the sleuthing begin!

Pittsburgh's GoogleServe 2012

Technology solutions can be a challenge to any nonprofit. You're trying to do too many things with too little staff, and the last thing on your mind is how you're going to find room in the budget for an IT guy or gal. Thankfully, if you're based in Pittsburgh, there may be a solution.

GoogleServe 2012 is a full day of local Google employees helping nonprofits maximize their utilization of the products and services Google can provide.The event, now in its 4th year, will feature sessions for both the clueless and those who already have Google products in place at their nonprofits. GoogleServe is hosted by HandsOn Tech, Pittsburgh Cares, and, obviously, Google.

HandsOn Tech is a local nonprofit, seeking to help other Pittsburgh-area nonprofits with technology training and support. I had the opportunity to attend one of their workshops last month, about using Google+ for Nonprofits and really enjoyed the experience. If you have time to volunteer your tech skills, I highly recommend checking out their site.

Pittsburgh GoogleServe 2012 will be held Friday, June 15 at Google Pittsburgh in Bakery Square. For more information and to register, check out their website.

The Google Cultural Institute

Once a search engine for the curiously puzzled, the Google of today is not only a superior resource gateway but also a vast and interconnected information hub. When in doubt about your train of thought, just hop on aboard the Google express. Even for doubts verging on the impossible; search for walking directions from the Shire to Mordor on Google Maps and you are admonished that “one does not simply walk into Mordor.”

The dangers of Sauron aside, today Google can just as easily claim that one does not simply stop googling. It is now a verb, a translation service, a virtual wallet, a communication and storage platform, a social network, and more recently, a cultural institute.

“The Google Cultural Institute helps preserve and promote culture online. With a team of dedicated engineers, Google is building tools that make it simple to tell the stories of our diverse cultural heritage and make them accessible worldwide. We have worked with organisations from across the globe on a variety of projects; presenting thousands of works of art online through the Art Project, digitising the archives of Nelson Mandela and showcasing the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

Of the initiatives of the Google Cultural Institute, the Art Project and the Dead Sea Scrolls have received the most amount of attention.  As such, we opted to take a look at some of the other projects that are changing the landscape (quite literally) of online cultural preservation.

Nelson Mandela Digital Archives Project In 2011, the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory partnered with Google to digitize and disseminate the archives of Nelson Mandela. The collaboration has resulted in a visually engaging timeline of Nelson Mandela’s life, populated with photographs, diary entries, letters, and excerpts from his autobiography. The site  is worth a visit because it both explains and celebrates the enduring legacy of the South African statesman.

World Wonders Project The World Wonders Project is perhaps the next iteration of the Street View mode in Google Maps. In a partnership with UNESCO,  the World Monument Fund, and Getty Images, the project “allows you to navigate virtually around some of the most important, historical and beautiful world heritage sites through panoramic street-level images, experiencing these places almost as if you were there.” The project is an impressive window to the world but is perhaps most suited to educational purposes.

La France en relief When the Grand Palais in Paris organized an exhibition showcasing 17th and 18th century relief maps of fortified towns in France, Google helped render seven of those models in 3-D. As such, seven fortified towns in France were built anew, in all their artisanal detail, on Google Earth. Furthermore, the reach of the exhibition was no longer limited by the very concept being showcased; geography.

La Pavillon de l’Arsenal (Paris Center for Architecture and Urbanism) Just as Google re-envisioned the past at the Grand Palais, at La Pavilon de l’Arsenal, it envisioned the future. Visitors were given a chance to explore the urban landscape of Paris of 2020 through “the first ever 48 screen interactive Liquid Galaxy display, which featured “3D models of the buildings, designed but not yet built, by architects such as Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti, Jean Nouvel and Rudy Ricciotti.”

Yad Vashem Google has helped digitize the vast archives of Yad Vashem, which is “the world center for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust.” Through a technique called optical character recognition (OCR), Google has enabled families to search for both documents and images belonging to their relatives. Here is an example given by Google: “To experience the new archive features yourself, try searching for the term [rena weiser], the name of a Jewish refugee. You’ll find a link to a visa issued to her by the Consulate of Chile in France.”

So there you have it, some of the Google's lesser known projects. Looks like culture is out there, quietly populating the internet. One need only google it.

iPhone vs. Android: What your Smartphone-of-Choice Says About You.

Based on over 80 million responses, Hunch blog has complied a rather…intriguing…analysis, and snazzy infographic, of smartphone users- highlighting the trends and differences between iPhone and Android users. What do you think? If you use a smartphone, do you relate to a smartphone-specific trend? How accurate/inaccurate are the findings?